


Pyrrhic Victories

by dollteeth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Marauders' Era, Quidditch, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-17
Updated: 2011-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollteeth/pseuds/dollteeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course, anything faintly resembling cunning will throw everyone outside Slytherin into a self-righteous tailspin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pyrrhic Victories

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in July 2009.

It’s not quite the victory celebration he was expecting.

He’s still holding the Snitch, he realizes, but letting it go would mean he’d have to stop fidgeting with it. He pulls at one of its silver wings and twists it absently in its socket. Regulus glances at Potter out of the corner of his eye, but not for long — the older boy is staring at him in disbelief, and even without a direct threat, it’s intimidating enough that he doesn’t want to sustain eye contact.

“So let me see if I understand this correctly,” says Madam Hooch, the only one in the top box to look calm and impassive. “The Snitch goes to Slytherin. Slytherin loses the match, at a score of two hundred and seventy to two hundred and fifty — but Gryffindor needed a forty-point lead to take the Cup, so the Quidditch Cup still goes to Slytherin.”

“Sounds about right, ma’am,” Regulus says, focusing on her because three of the four Heads of House are wearing scarlet rosettes.

Potter is still staring at him. “Oh for Merlin’s sake,” he says with a harsh laugh. “I knew your offence was spotty today but I didn’t think you’d told them to do it on _purpose._ That isn’t legal, is it, Professor?” he adds, turning to McGonagall with a plaintive look.

“But it is!” Regulus interjects indignantly. He’s starting to get annoyed that no one sees the brilliance of it. “I checked, there’s nothing in the rules about losing on purpose. It’s not cheating, it’s _tactics,_ Gryffindor always gets overconfident when the opponent isn’t doing well.”

In his pre-match fantasies — which were, admittedly, self-indulgent — the Gryffindors were always quick to concede that Slytherin had got the Cup fair and square, and his housemates were thrilled with him for finally getting Slytherin a little glory. But of course, anything faintly resembling cunning will throw everyone outside Slytherin into a self-righteous tailspin. Really, he should have seen this coming.

“That’s dashed clever of you, my boy,” Slughorn beams — but he pats Regulus’s shoulder in a way that says all too clearly that he’s trying to prepare him for a disappointment.

Professor McGonagall sets her mouth in a thin line. She seems to be pitting her inner Quidditch fanatic against her sense of fairness.

“It follows the _letter_ of the rules, if not the spirit,” she says finally, fixing Regulus in a beadily disapproving gaze. “I will neither endorse nor withdraw Mr. Potter’s challenge. This is entirely Madam Hooch’s decision.”

Madam Hooch glances between the team captains and picks up the Cup. The Snitch in Regulus’s hands flicks its twisted wing sharply and slices it across his knuckle.

After a split second, Hooch favors Regulus with a grim smile. “Technical win to Slytherin,” she says, and hands him the cup; it’s heavier than it looks and he staggers a bit when he tries to hold it one-handed. “Go tell your teammates.”

Potter probably would have held the damn thing aloft to announce his victory to the crowd, but Regulus feels small and silly and acutely aware of the mud spattered across the hem of his kit. As he makes his way back down to the field he doesn’t entirely hear Hooch’s announcement of the decision, but he does hear the reactions — shrieks of protest nearly drown out the Slytherins’ cheers, and the Gryffindor team sit clustered at the far end of the pitch, glaring mutinously.

One of the Chasers, Sophie Baddock, nearly knocks the wind out of him as he steps back onto the pitch. “Potter’s going to _kill_ you!” she says blissfully from somewhere around his collarbone. “Did you see the looks on their faces?”

Regulus doesn’t tell her that it doesn’t matter; that they’re the only ones who think they’ve won it honestly; that rather than bringing respect to Slytherin they’ve just made themselves even more disliked than they already were.

Instead he forces a grin. “I’d say we deflated their egos, but that’d probably take a miracle,” he says.

He hands the Quidditch Cup to the youngest player — the Keeper, Parkinson — and watches her raise it to lukewarm applause.


End file.
